Saturday, April 9, 2011

The voting for the April Challenge of the Etsy Beadweavers Team is now open! Stop by and take a look at all the beaded spring beauty! http://www.etsy-beadweavers.blogspot.com/ My entry is #7.

My entry for this month's challenge is my Spring Lilac Brooch. It's a large brooch...more like a corsage...so I'm calling it a Broosage! Perfect for your new Easter dress and it would make a fabulous Mother's Day gift!

I've created this piece for the EBW Team's April 2011 Challenge "Spring Around the Corner". Here in North Carolina spring is spectacular and it has arrived! The dogwoods and azaleas are just about to pop! But I still miss the lilac season back in my hometown of Rochester New York, where spring truly began in May with the Lilac Festival at Highland Park. Lilacs in amazing variety bloom abundantly on a lush hillside and the fragrance is on the breeze blocks away.

This lovely large Brooch is really more of a Corsage...A Broosage! It starts with a seed bead encrusted base in deep lilac and color lined green size 11 beads with a matte brown stem. On top of the embroidery, I've created a bouquet of tiny little lilac florets made from tiny little size 15 seed beads in a luster lilac with an amber crystal at the center of each. I've also included some beautiful gold luster lilac czech glass flowers anchored by tiny pearl yellow seed beads. The leaves are embellished with a handful of rainbow peridot crystal "dewdrops" for some sparkle. The finishing touch is a couple of irridescent pink glass butterflies. The brooch is carefully edged in seed beads, backed in a lilac tie-died felt and has a 1.5" gold plated pinback. The Broosage is 5" long and 3.5" across the widest part.

This is a picture of my "Rochester" Lilac that bloomed a little early this year. It came to me as a twig from a tree my aunt had in upstate NY. Lilacs are not as happy here in NC where the summer is too doggone hot and the winters are not quite cold enough, but this one presents me with a small bouquet every year and I love it!

I've created quite a few treasuries lately, stop by and check them out!